1:38GLENDALE, ARIZ. – It all seems so preventable.
The Wild has faced life the past seven games without Zach Parise because of a broken left foot, one on which he played a dozen games before it became too painful to continue. Now, the team faces life for a few weeks without defenseman Jared Spurgeon, who injured a foot blocking a shot, and captain Mikko Koivu for a month after he broke his right ankle when struck by a puck.
Maybe it's contagious because defenseman Marco Scandella missed Wednesday's practice after being drilled by a puck to the foot in Tuesday night's victory at Los Angeles. He limped out of the rink and is questionable to play Thursday against Phoenix.
Not only do none of these players wear protection over their skates, not a single Wild player wears any of the many types of plastic or carbon fiber foot protectors (Shot Blockers, Skate Fenders, etc.) sold in the marketplace.
General Manager Chuck Fletcher is trying to end that.
In unfortunate irony, before the injuries to Koivu, Spurgeon and Scandella, Fletcher met with several of his players in an attempt to persuade them to wear protection on the outside of their boots.
Next week, Francois Blondin, an orthotist and prosthetist out of Montreal, is coming to Minnesota to make moldings of each Wild player's skates. It will then be up to each player to try out the custom-made shot blockers to see if he can play with them.
"The problem is players have the right to do what they want to do. We cannot make them wear them," Fletcher said. "We can encourage them to, we can provide [foot protectors] to them — which we have all year — and we can be a little more aggressive in extolling the virtues of shot blockers and, well, strongly recommend them.
